I have found that the lessons that should have been learned from the Challenger Disaster pop up time after time after time when I move from company to company. Leaving project management techniques et cetera aside, I see the same failures of management and how investigations are run (or silenced) and projects managed with alarming frequency. In later years I have taken to instructing my senior technical/scientific staff (those in or moving into junior management) to read about this disaster and the human causes that allowed it to happen (in particular Richard Feynman's personal account of being involved in the investigational work is an excellent read).
Are there any books, ideas, et cetera that you often rely on or teach other people in your career as scientist/manager?
Edited by Astilius, 14 August 2015 - 04:35 AM.